The year 2024 saw President Vladimir Putin further cement his power as he sought to counter Russia's isolation over the war in Ukraine.

In the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War, Russian President Vladimir Putin is sending a clear, morale-boosting message to his security services: If you get caught, Russia will bring you home.

The 24-person blockbuster prison swap carried out this week required the U.S. to regroup after the unexpected death in February of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who’d been seen as a key cog in a potential exchange.

When Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was suddenly moved to a detention center in Moscow from his Siberian prison, he thought he was being taken from his cell to be shot.

The U.S. and Russia completed on Thursday their largest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, a deal involving 24 people, many months of negotiations and concessions from other European countries who released individuals in their custody as part of the exchange.

Vadim Krasikov, the Russian at the center of a massive prisoner swap, has long topped the Kremlin’s list for an exchange.

The United States and Russia have completed a 24-person prisoner swap, the largest in post-Soviet history, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan in a multinational deal that set some two dozen people free.

Belarus’ authoritarian leader has granted pardon to a German citizen who has been sentenced to death on terrorism charges.

Germany is expelling two Russian diplomats after a court concluded that Moscow was behind the killing of a Chechen man in Berlin two years ago.